Goddamn, did he just squeeze another comic out of that "Obama kicked critical reporters off his plane" story? Gotta respect that. Times are tough for right-wing political cartoonists, what with the lack of news these days.

Also, if you look this stuff up "on the Internet", and look beyond the first hit, you find out pretty quickly that these stories are not what Tinsley would like you to think they are.

Okay, if the reporters had McCain coverage ANYWAYS, what's the point of having them on Obama's plane? Especially since the purpose of the plane is to have a more personal look at a candidate? One theoretically writes about issues from speeches given at the destinations, not on the plane.

Besides, they were on the plane up until 3 days prior. And the whole campaign was about 3 billion days long.

This is the Washington Post piece in question. Long story short: there were more stories on Obama than on McCain because, A., Obama's primary fight was much longer and more contentious; and, B., because, as any unbiased observer would have to admit, the ascendancy of the first-ever serious African-American presidential candidate is SLIGHTLY more newsworthy than another old white dude.

The article is actually pretty toolish--check out the part where she laments that the paper spent insufficient time disseminating bullshit talking points from right-wing bloggers.

* That ombudsman's article was pretty funny; I cranked the numbers when Tinkley first cited it and the "tilt" was percentagewise in the single digits, completely explainable by the relative newsworthiness of the campaigns AND the fact that the tickets got relatively balanced coverage once you factor the greater attention Palin got over Biden. Kinda funny the ombudsman didn't give numbers on that.

* KickingReportersGate didn't work for McCain's campaign; I don't know why Tinkley thinks it'll work for him

* DavyK is a brave, brave man for actually reading years of Mallard Fillmore to tally the number of depictions of W, all for the sake of proving what we all knew: Tinkley lies.

Canard is a French word for a duck, and is often used in English to refer to a deliberately false story, originating from an abbreviated form of an old French idiom, "vendre un canard à moitié," meaning "to half-sell a duck." In French it can also mean a journal.

As the late, great Molly Ivins said about being attacked on-air by Rush Limbaugh, being flamed by Tinzanonymous is akin to being gummed by a newt--it doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. Bad Tinzy!